One of the worst things about car culture in general is that it still tends to be a boys' club. That's been changing rapidly on several fronts as more and more women get involved in everything from auto engineering to motorsports, but it still has a long way to go.

The car companies didn't exactly help with this. For decades, their ads primarily depicted women as terrible drivers who were mechanically incompetent, woefully unprepared to buy cars on their own, and fun-killing nags who kept their husbands from buying the sports cars they really wanted.

A lot of those ads are just laughably awful today. The famous automatic transmission Volvo commercial from the 1960s is one; reader My X-Type Is Too A Real Jaguar pointed out another one in today's Morning Shift, the Volkswagen ad you see above. That one's a real shame because it mars the generally-amazing DDB ad campaign for VW from the '60s and '70s.

In case you didn't know this, men aren't the only ones allowed to buy cars anymore. Women …
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Considering that advertising and the auto industry were both dominated by heterosexual men for so long, these ads make me wonder why they looked down on women so much. Just sayin'.

Cars should be enjoyed by everyone, not just dudes! So let's see the most sexist car ads of all time. We can do better, people.

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